The British
created and perfected the classic country estate murder mystery – assemble a
group of people (usually wealthy) for a long country weekend, add some
underlying passions and tensions and a dash of romance, throw in a murder or two, and presto – you have
yourself a mystery. Agatha Christie was well known for this sub-genre of the
murder mystery.
J. Jefferson
Farjeon’s (1883-1955) Thirteen
Guests falls into that sub-genre, but with a number of unexpected twists
and perhaps with even a poke of a little fun at this staple of the Golden Age
of Mystery (1920s-1940s).
Lord Aveling of
Bragley Court is hosting a hunting party weekend. Twelve guests are invited (13
is considered an unlucky number). But John Foss, a young man (not an invited
guest) stumbles from the train at the local station, severely twists his ankle,
and is taken in hand by one of Aveling’s guests, a beautiful woman named Nadine
Leveridge. Good manners and hospitality being what they are in 1930s Britain, Foss
is put up for the weekend in an anteroom at the manor. While immobilized with
his ankle, he’s able to hear a considerable number of conversations in the
hallway.
The guests
include a Liberal Party member of Parliament, a stage actress, a sausage
manufacturer (with his wife and daughter), an artist, a journalist, Mrs.
Leveridge (a widow), a boilerplate mystery writer, and a couple whom seemed to
be disliked by all of the guests. And there’s one uninvited guest, a man
hovering around the station platform and then near the country estate.
The host has a
secret, the guests have secrets, the servants have secrets – and a blackmailer
is afoot. A man is found dead during the stag hunt, and then a second body is
found.
 |
| J. Jefferson Farjeon |
Besides having some
fun with the mystery writer character, Farjeon tackles this mystery staple with
something unusual. The story unfolds during different conversations between the
guests, and it is only the reader and the author who see all of what’s
happening. The local police inspector has his hands full untangling lies,
misinformation, timing, and the events that have happened, but he proves up to
the task (no bumbling country policeman here.)
Farjeon wrote
more than 80 crime novels and other works. Thirteen
Guests, first published in 1936, is one of three recently republished through The British Library Crime
Classics series, the other two being Mystery
in White and The Z Murders.
Thirteen Guests takes the classic country manor mystery
to a new level. It’s one enjoyable mystery.
Related:
Top photograph: A country manor by Jon Luty
via Public
Domain Pictures. Used with permission.
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